Huseyn Aliyev

University of Bremen | Uni Bremen · Forschungsstelle Osteuropa

Previous studies have shown that many recent Jihadist insurgencies differ from other types of civil wars due to their high levels of civilian victimization and their incidence among tribal and honorific societies. We argue that these characteristics of Jihadist wars may have an effect on anti-rebel mobilization among the local population. Notwithst...

How do social sanctions affect individual participation in civil war violence? Which mechanisms facilitate implementation of social sanctions in times of crises? This study draws on unique in-depth interview data with former ethnic Crimean Tatar combatants in Ukraine to flesh out specific mechanisms that enable social sanctions to function as an ef...

This study challenges the presentation of non-state armed groups as divided into anti-government rebels and pro-government proxies and proposes that some pro-government armed groups maintain explicit anti-government rhetoric. It is this anti-government agenda that enables “pro-government” groups to successfully recruit their members and to advance...

There is little research on why smaller ethnic groups with no political stakes in the conflict take part in civil wars. There is even less understanding as to why members of small ethnicities join ideologically distant conflict participants to fight against an enemy that does not directly threaten their ethnic security. This study describes these e...

Why do some geographical locales experience higher levels of violent mobilization during armed conflicts than others? Existing studies on high-risk mobilization examined economic greed and ethno-nationalist grievances, as well as incentives- and sanctions-based motivations to fight in civil wars. In order to explain violent mobilization beyond the...

Disengagement from militant groups has often been explained in individual terms such as battle fatigue or the desire to rejoin family and friends. We seek to examine empirically which other factors, beyond individual-level determinants, have influenced disengagement processes among militants belonging to different types of Chechen militant organisa...

Since the early 1990s, the NGO sector in the South Caucasus has faced countless challenges on its road to development. Among these, an endemic “informalisation of society” – to a certain degree inherited from the Soviet Union – posed a seemingly insurmountable number of obstacles for the emergence and establishment of an egalitarian and open civil...

Previous large-N studies on conflict lethality have focused in large part either on structural factors or on the properties of key conflict protagonists – governments and rebels. This article challenges the dyadic two-actor approach to studying conflict lethality that examines exclusively the key actors of the dyad, and – on the example of pro-regi...

The extant theory of ethnic defection rests on the importance of ethnic identity shift and loyalism toward the regime, which were thus far presented as key explanations of side switching in ethnic conflicts. This article challenges the validity of these claims and proposes an alternative theoretical argument. This study argues that individuals mobi...

How does the presence of armed pro-regime groups affect conflict lethality? This study examines the relationship between ethnicity, militia violence and conflict lethality in civil wars. We emphasise that differences in whether pro-regime militias were recruited in accordance with their ethnicity or not are critical in their influence upon conflict...

Previous research on non-state actors involved in civil wars has tended to disregard the role of extra-dyad agents in influencing conflict outcomes. Little is known as to whether the presence of such extra-dyadic actors as pro-regime militias affects conflict termination and outcomes. This article develops and tests a number of hypotheses on the pr...

This study seeks to improve our understanding of the causes leading to failure of de facto states. In contrast to the voluminous body of literature on sovereign state failure, the process of de facto state failure remains under-researched. Drawing upon the existing research on state failure and de facto statehood, we narrow down our theoretical exp...

The scholarship on unrecognized or de facto states has been booming in the recent decades exploring this phenomenon from a variety of perspectives. Yet, as this article illustrates, a crucial accent on the instrumentalization of unrecognized states by regional actors – or, to put it differently, on unrecognized states as a source of coercive diplom...

Research on informal aspects of the post-communist economy and political institutions has developed rapidly since the collapse of the Soviet Union. While there is no lack in research on informal practices in Russia and other Eastern European countries, comprehensive empirical investigations of informality in peripheral regions of the former Soviet...

This article examines whether the incidence of civil wars and the presence of violent non-state actors have an effect on state failure. Research on failed states has thus far prioritised armed conflicts as one of the key causes of state failure. This study challenges that claim and posits that civil war incidence has limited impact on the transitio...

This book argues that the existing scholarship on asymmetric conflict has so far failed to take into account the role of socio-cultural disparities among belligerents. In order to remedy this deficiency, this study conceptualizes socio-cultural asymmetry under the term of asymmetry of values. It proposes that socio-cultural values which are based u...

This chapter intends to provide the reader with an ethnographic and historical background of the armed conflict in Chechnya. The chapter consists of three major parts. Its first part casts light on the key elements relating to the ethnography of the Chechens and to the milestones of their national history. It focuses on the social organization – th...

This empirical chapter consists of three main parts, each detailing the mechanism relating to the discussed socio-cultural codes: retaliation, hospitality, and silence. The chapter shows that during the First Russo-Chechen War, the code of retaliation served as an important source of violent mobilization as thousands of Chechens sought to retaliate...

The last chapter draws conclusion and offers practical recommendations for policy-makers. It concludes that socio-cultural codes discussed in the book – retaliation, hospitality, and silence – create a unique form of asymmetry between the honor cultures on the one hand, and the industrialized cultures on the other hand. These three socio-cultural c...

This article challenges the well-established presentation within conflict studies of paramilitary organizations as state-manipulated death squads or self-defence groups, and argues that some present-day militias extend their functions well beyond the role of shadowy pro-regime enforcers. Drawing its empirical insights from Ukrainian pro-government...

Can former insurgents in the service of counterinsurgent paramilitaries be considered a perfectly loyal force? What mechanisms may help to deter subsequent defections of individuals who have already “betrayed” once? Drawing on a unique set of primary data, this article examines the effective counter-defection practices of Chechnya’s pro-Moscow para...

This study seeks to identify factors conducive to the (in)efficacy of indigenous forces (IF) in counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in Russia’s republics of Chechnya and Dagestan. Empirically, it is the first study to offer an examination of the deployment of IF in the North Caucasus-based COIN. The findings of this article emphasize that the effec...

Despite a considerable amount of ethnographic research into the phenomena of blood revenge and blood feud, little is known about the role of blood revenge in political violence, armed conflict, and irregular war. Yet blood revenge�widespread among many conflict-affected societies of the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond�is not confined to the r...

To date little is known about the non-governmental organizations' (NGOs) use of informal networks, contacts and connections, as well as about the ‘informalization’ of post-communist civil society in the former Soviet Union. Research on the subject has been mostly restricted to the study of civil society organizations in Central Eastern Europe, the...

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, assistance to civil society has been at the forefront of the European Union's (EU) strategy in its post-Soviet Eastern neighbourhood. The literature on the EU support to civil society in post-Soviet countries has so far primarily focused on democratisation and the research assessing the effects of EU assistance t...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to suggest that informal practices and institutions of post-Soviet countries differ from informality in other post-socialist regions and, therefore, proposes categorizing it as “post-Soviet informality” – a composite definition that extends beyond the concept of “informal economy” and encompasses, along with e...

In contrast to numerous studies on exogenous mechanisms of human security – such as the provision of human security by international actors – this study examines the role of informal networks in providing ‘freedoms from want’ and ‘freedoms from fear’ to the population. With the primary focus on post-communist South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan and...

This book examines the relationship between the weakness of civil society and the legacy of Soviet public and private spheres in the post-Soviet Caucasus. Starting from the assumption that an analysis of 'civic traditions' of formal and informal civil associations inherited from the Soviet period can provide explanations as to why the present-day c...

The end of Soviet rule in the South Caucasus was followed by a decade of economic and political instability. Failed democratization and stalled transition to a market economy encouraged the continuity of informal socio-economic practices deeply rooted during the Soviet period. In the immediate post-communist period, people in the South Caucasus wid...

This article analyses the relationship between the Soviet legacy and the post-communist civil society in the Caucasus region. The key argument is that there are two main forms of the former regime's legacy that affect the development of civil society: institutional legacy, engraved in institutional norms and regulations, and individual legacy prese...

This article, unlike the small but rapidly expanding body of literature on Azerbaijan’s relations with Israel, focuses on the role of Iranian influence as a factor strengthening the strategic partnership that has been successfully blossoming between Azerbaijan and Israel in areas of economic, cultural, developmental and more recently, military coop...

Since the 2003 Rose Revolution, the Georgian government implemented a number of major institutional reforms which have succeeded in modernising Georgia's state institutions, reducing corruption and 'formalising' the public sector. While the effects of Saakashvili's reforms on state and institution-building, corruption and the rule of law have been...

This article fills the gap in existing scholarship on asymmetric conflict, indigenous forces, and how socio-cultural codes shape the dynamics and outcomes of conflict transformation. Specifically, it identifies three key socio-cultural values commonplace in honorific societies: retaliation, hospitality, and silence. As sources of effective pro-insu...

The research to date on informal networks of the post-communist South Caucasus has tended to focus either on the informal institutions’ role in providing social safety nets for the population or on the networks’ economic functions. This article examines the impact of informal kinship networks on participation in organized civil society in the prese...

The main purpose of this chapter is to present empirical findings of the study. A rigorous analysis of interviews with former militants belonging to three main categories — avengers, nationalists, and jihadists — as well as with the their relatives and close friends and experts, is organized in this chapter along the main research themes of the stu...

This concluding chapter summarizes the goals of research and presents its findings. Overall, the analysis of empirical data suggests that a strong connection exists between the category of (ex)militants and their disengagement pathways. Broadly speaking, the study demonstrates that disengagement from militant activity occurs more often among avenge...

This chapter constructs a conceptual framework for analyzing individual militant disengagement. Having demonstrated on examples of different militant organizations that individual members of militant groups can be conceptualized as driven by ethno-nationalist, religious, or revenge-centered motivations, it is argued in this chapter that most indivi...

This chapter introduces two case studies examined in this book — the North Caucasian republics of Chechnya and Dagestan. While the first part of the chapter undertakes a journey into history and ethnography of these two republics, the second part guides readers through the decades-long armed conflict in the region. From the start of the First Chech...

The main goal of this chapter is to present the existing theoretical framework on individual disengagement. It is demonstrated in this chapter that the current research is heavily focused on rather vague and amorphous ‘pull’ and ‘push’ factors. Having reviewed a diverse body of literature in political violence studies, this chapter offers a detaile...

This article provides an empirical analysis of the South Caucasus' post-communist blat-a system of informal inter-personal networks operating on principles emphasizing reciprocal exchanges of favors. An intricate web of blat networks emerged in the Soviet Union as a result of the communist takeover of the public sphere, which in conjunction with th...

Modern humanitarian action is conducted in a rapidly changing geopolitical environment. This brief theoretical piece is an analysis of how humanitarian action can be perceived from a neo-realist point of view. It suggests that apart from being a leading theory of international relations, neo-realism can throw a light on patterns and strategies of i...

This article provides a brief analysis of the "Peace to Caucasus" project, emphasizing its current gains and weaknesses, as well as its implications for peace-building in the North Caucasus.

This study is an analysis of civil society’s participation in conflict resolution and implementation of aid efforts in the North Caucasus. Its main goal is to explore the role of civil society in conflict de-escalation in three autonomous republics in the Russian North Caucasus - Dagestan, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria, which are the scene of a...

This article provides a brief overview of bottom-up peace-building and its practice in the North Caucasus. The hypothesis developed in this study is an assumption that the conflict in North Caucasus starts at the community, or grass-roots, level. Therefore, peaceful resolutions to conflict should be sought by implementing a local, bottom-up type of...